Begin Again
by Hannah Taylor1
Summary: Set towards the end of Season 3. Stefan and Bonnie conspire to stop Damon from interfering with Klaus' plans, devising an extreme strategy that could very well push Damon over that razor's edge between good and evil that he frequents on a daily basis. Elena steps in to save him, leading to a seismic change in their relationship. Totally Delena oriented. Rated M for later chapters
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I swear I'll finish the other stories I have posted one day soon. Most of them are near completion, but working on my Master's while teaching fulltime is cutting significantly into my writing. Plus, I have all these new ideas buzzing through my head thanks to the new season and they keep spilling over ...**

**This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for many things, including my wonderful beta and friend secretindulgence24. If you haven't read her stories, you're missing out in a BIG way.**

**Chapter One**

Elena's terrified screams were the soundtrack of Damon's nightmares.

They were supposed to _stay _in his nightmares, dammit! He clutched his cellphone to his ear and tried to drive while simultaneously deciphering her incoherent cries.

"Elena. Elena. _Elena_," he pleaded. "I can't understand a word you're saying."

Her screams got louder yet, something about Katherine-

"Katherine?"

Damon swerved off the side of the road, nearly taking out a tree. He gripped the wheel white-knuckled and just managed to keep the vehicle from flipping as two of its wheels came off the pavement.

"Elena, where are you?"

As far as he knew, Katherine was safely locked away in Alaric's apartment, compelled by Klaus to stay firmly put. If she'd managed to get away and had decided to go after Elena for some reason, hell wouldn't have enough money to pay for the punishment he'd wreak on his former love interest.

"Damon-she's-I'm-no no no no don't-oh my God _JEREMY no please!"_

That did it. Damon veered onto the shoulder and slammed the car into park.

"Where are you?" he demanded again, jumping out. Almost worst than her screaming were the broken-hearted sobs now filtering through the speaker.

"No, no, no, Jer, please, please ..."

Damon clenched his fist, trying to hold down his own panic. He couldn't lose the plot. She needed him.

"Damon, he's dying-"

He could almost hear the tears running down on her face as she sobbed her brother's name.

"One word, Elena." He stalked down the highway, unsure of what direction to take but unable to stay still one more second. "That's all I need to come find you, baby."

The call cut off abruptly, ending on a high-pitched, anguished shriek that reverberated around and around Damon's brain. He cursed a desperately blue streak, unaccustomed to feeling so utterly useless.

Far from being born yesterday; the vampire was fully aware that he was being baited. Otherwise, why would Katherine let Elena call him for help when she knew very well that hurting her doppelganger was the one airtight guarantee that Damon would send her to her belated grave-

He pulled up short, leaning his head back to glare at the sky in sudden understanding. Grave. Of course. Whatever Katherine wanted from him, it was linked to the tomb.

He reversed course and put on a burst of speed, dialing Stefan's number simultaneously. Instead of his younger sibling, a familiar female voice answered on the third ring.

"Hi Damon."

"Bonnie? Why do you have my br-Never mind." Damon shelved that unexpected weirdness for later consideration. "Tell Stefan that Katherine's loose and on the rampage. She's got Elena and Jeremy. I need some baby brother backup."

"Where?"

"Where else?" The forest surrounding Fell's Church appeared on the horizon. "Moonstone Central."

"The tomb?"

"That's my best guess. Hurry." He ended the call and shoved the phone into his pocket as he arrived at the borderline of the woods. He should probably wait for Stefan before entering the thick wooded area where Katherine could have any number of unpleasant surprises waiting for him ...

"Bring it on, bitch," Damon said grimly, ducking his head and moving in.

Roughly 60 seconds later he reached the tomb utterly unimpeded.

"You used to be better at this game, Katherine," he called down the stairs, more certain than ever that he was walking straight into a trap. "Why not make it a _little _more obvious that you're luring me ..."

**"Damon!"**

Elena's broken cry sealed the vampire's fate as cleanly as he'd once sealed Katherine's grave. He rushed headlong down the steps and into the tomb, not pausing to wonder who had opened it this time.

The warren of crumbling walls closed in around him as he entered, the thick stone serving a disturbing acoustic function and magnifying Elena's renewed screams.

"Elena?"

"Damon!"

Aware that Katherine's little trap might spring shut at any moment, he swerved in and out of the narrow passages, tracking the sound of her cries.

"Keep yelling, Elena!"

"Damon, _please!"_

Dead ends tripped him up at every turn, sending him careening into rusting iron gates that attempted to impale him as he wrenched them aside. Damon's usually nimble feet snagged on ancient grave shrouds minus their former owners who had either crumbled to dust or joined the parade of walking dead who now lurked in the shadows of Mystic Falls' genteel facade. He caught himself on a low wall and blundered straight into a tangle of confusing cobwebs-what would spiders have to feed on down here, other than zombie flies, maybe? The incensed vampire barreled forward, pulling down fistfuls of thick, sticky swathes as he went. Maybe he could use them to choke Katherine on her own spit...

"Damon?"

That was Stefan's concerned voice somewhere in the background. Finally.

"Stay out, brother," Damon warned, shattering another half-wall with an inhumanly strong shove. "Something is seriously screwy in vampire city ... You'll need to hold the fort and get Elena home if I go down in here." He snarled in frustrated fury as yet another dead end brought him to a standstill. "Elena, keep yelling! Where the hell are you, _Katerina_?" Klaus' pet name was the darkest invective he could hurl at the woman he had once offered his soul.

"Right here, Die-món," a softly accented voiced murmured. The antiquated pronunciation of his name caught Damon more offguard than anything else that evening. He hadn't heard that since his baptism at age six, when the priest had admonished his parents that they should've picked a more suitable name than the Greek for _demon_. Certainly, Katherine had never heard it or she would've mocked him mercilessly-

"That's taking things a little far, Bonnie."

Damon paused, confused.

The witch's cool reply drifted through the maze as easily as Elena's screams had moments earlier. "I had to use his given name to finish the spell."

Cold realization dripped down Damon's spine. He rounded a corner, still half expecting to find Elena's bloody, silence corpse waiting for him to arrive late. Late. Late. Too late.

A battery-powered lantern, misplaced Igloo cooler and green sleeping bag slid the final puzzle piece into place as neatly as Montresor had once walled in Fortunato.

Betrayal howled an unfinished symphony through Damon's brain. He groaned his brother's name, too shocked at his own stupidity to be angry just yet, too stunned at this twist of the knife in his back to do much more than just stand there dumbly.

_"Stefan ..."_

"I'm sorry, brother. I kept telling you not to interfere ... " Stefan sounded surprisingly guilt-stricken. "Elena's fine, by the way. She didn't know anything about this."

Emotions buffeted Damon with the strength of hurricane winds. Astonishment at his brother's treachery after all the steps they'd made toward reconciling, relief that Elena was unharmed and uninvolved, fear at being trapped between a rock and the hardest place of all-his full, unfettered thoughts with no distractions to keep him from drowning-all collided with his desire to storm through the tomb and rage at the barrier that undoubtedly now stood between him and freedom. The only thing that curbed his immediate action was the broken need to preserve some crumb of dignity after proving to be such a colossal, heart-led idiot.

Slowly, the vampire slid to the floor, feeling the cold seep into his bones.

"Damon?" Stefan called after a short while, apparently concerned when his brother failed to react as expected.

Even if he'd wanted to respond, Damon couldn't. He rested his head against a ledge and stared straight ahead into the darkness. At his best, Damon held to self-control by a thin thread of lingering humanity which kept him from spiraling completely into the abyss. At his worst, that thread snapped completely and he destroyed everything in his path without regard for whether he loathed or loved those who tried to interfere.

"Damon?"

A twisted smile graced Damon's face and he absently toyed with the spiderwebs still clenched in his fists. Unbidden, Elena had mended his torn threads. His love for her had drawn the vampire up out of his decades of self-imposed darkness, but even she would be unable to reach him if he flipped the switch this time. It was for her sake that he clenched his jaw and held his body locked rigidly now even as fury vibrated through him with enough force to rupture bodily organs. He could not go to pieces. Not physically, not emotionally: Until Elena's safety from Klaus was secured, self-serving insanity was simply not an option.

"Come on, Damon. Don't be that way. It's just a temporary thing to keep you from screwing things up with Klaus again."

Damon said nothing.

Bonnie stepped in, apparently stopping Stefan from being as dumb as his older brother had been.

"You can't go in there. No supernatural being can cross that boundary and get back out again."

"This may not have been the best idea." Stefan's inability to commit to a plan without backtracking all over himself was laughable. "Once he gets out-"

"He's not getting out," Bonnie said firmly. "Not until Klaus and all the originals and their pet hybrids have been disposed of and not until I can figure out a way to keep him from hurting anybody else again."

"Wait a minute. That wasn't the agreement."

Bonnie's trademark shrug was almost audible. Damon closed his eyes, feeling the anger writhe beneath his skin and barely containing it.

"You made a deal with a witch, Stefan. There's always a price to pay." Apparently even a vaunted witch couldn't quite hold her ground under the force of Stefan's martyred gaze. "I'll let him out _eventually_. This is best for the time being."

Damon's eyes narrowed and his fangs appeared alongside his desire to rip Bonnie's throat out. He drew himself up into a half-crouch, twisting toward the door that he'd promised himself just moments ago he wouldn't go near. That was the problem with being a vampire-both personality halves had to be in agreement, or war erupted internally.

"We'll bring you fresh blood in a couple weeks," Stefan called, as though Damon would jump up and thank him for providing for his physical needs.

A thought occurred to Damon, leading him to contemplate the piles of rubble scattered around the floor. Could he throw something through the barrier? Maybe take the witch out by smashing in her skull? If she died, the spell would went with her, right?

Always a slow learner, Stefan lingered near the entrance, waiting for a response that he should have known was never coming.

Damon hefted a sizeable chunk of mortar in one hand and climbed silently to his feet.

"He's playing with us, Stefan." Bonnie sighed impatiently. "Come on. Elena will be wondering where we are."

Suddenly afraid lest he miss his one chance at revenge-it was all about revenge now; freedom had died the minute they locked him away, giving free rein to the dark side he'd worked so hard to learn to contain-Damon bolted toward the entrance, cursing as he took multiple wrong turns. He finally burst into the entry passage, brick held aloft and already halfway toward being hurled at Bonnie.

A sharp gasp penetrated the fog of his bloodlust, shining a small light on his beleaguered soul.

"Damon?"

Trembling, Damon continued to clench the mortar so tightly that it began to crumble to dust between his fingers. He stared at the lone familiar figure standing a few feet away and felt his divided subconscious tear just a little farther from its human moorings.

Any other day the sweet, pale green summer dress and carefully styled brown curls tumbling down temptingly bare shoulders would have been appealing. Today, it all only served to further bewilder the vampire. She looked alive and well and so innocent and yet he couldn't begin to feel relief without simultaneously feeling the sharp pricking of his treasonous DNA.

"Katherine?" he rasped, pressing into the invisible wall that kept him from answering his own question.

"No, Elena." She approached him slowly, eyes wide. "Why would you think-"

Words were no longer sufficient. Eyes fully blood-dilated, fangs exposed in warning, Damon demanded, "_Prove it." _

Wearing an appropriately frightened expression-Katherine was always a good actress-the woman in question paused, seeming to discern something. "Are you-did they-"

"Nah," he sneered mockingly, "I'm just in here for kicks. Figured I'd scout out a new drinking venue, you know. The Grille is so passé."

"I thought Stefan and Bonnie were up to something." She bit her lower lip, a typical Elena gesture that, unfortunately, Katherine had also perfected. "I swear though I had no idea, Damon."

"Come on over and have a looksee," the caged animal in him all but roared as he slammed his fist into the barrier futilely. "Throw a peanut at the monkey; maybe it'll dance a grateful jig."

As though the wall between them didn't exist, the woman squared her shoulders and stepped inside.

His bravado crumpled in horrified realization when she surpassed the supernatural barrier. Dropping the mortar chunk, he delivered a warning,

"Get out of here, Elena."

If he'd had any doubts, the total disregard for her personal safety confirmed Elena's identity as she moved toward him steadily in spite of his completely vamped-out appearance.

"This is wrong, Damon. I may not agree with all your actions, but this-" she shook her head. "You would never do this to Stefan. I can't believe this decision came from him."

Damon took several steps back, afraid to be anywhere near her when he was so far out to sea. "To be fair to my gullible sibling, the witch had more than a minor white stake in things." He laughed bitterly.

"Don't, Damon," Elena said quietly. "Don't push me away."

"I have to," he said desperately, the compassion in her expression acting like vervain against his alter-ego and just barely keeping him in check. "You need to _go_, Elena. I'm not to be around safe right now."

Damnably stubborn woman. The firm jut of her chin warned him what her retort would be. "I'm not leaving you here."

"Funny, that's not one of the choices Stefan allowed you to make," he snapped, terrified that he wouldn't be able to protect her from himself. A bone crunched under his foot as a potent reminder of what he'd be without blood for a few weeks. "You're a human, Elena. Coexistence in this airless dungeon-not a possibility. You need food, water, something to breathe."

"You need the same things."

"Don't ever try out for Jeopardy," he groaned. "Elena, I can survive in here for a long time without anything. Besides, Stefan wasn't _totally _heartless. He dipped into his Ripper stash for a cooler of Type B. That'll keep me sentient for a few weeks."

"Surviving on blood," she said slowly. "That's what you did when you were looking for Katherine. Your body survived-but your heart and mind, they need more, Damon."

He groaned, even if she was more than a little bit right. "So you'll bring me magazines and visit wearing a miniskirt occasionally to keep my blood pumping to all the right places."

When she didn't refute his innuendo, Damon knew this battle had been lost the moment she spotted him in the entrance. A wave of gratitude carried him above the black tide, propelling him to a handhold which he could use to drag himself from the slime.

Sensing a shift in his stance, Elena took a step forward and wrapped her arms around Damon's waist. He let out a slow breath as her head came to rest on his chest trustingly

"I'm not going anywhere," she whispered into his shirt fiercely, one small hand fisting in the fabric to punctuate her point.

Damon closed his arms around her, more carefully than usual just in case he wasn't quite back in control yet. Tentatively, he rested his chin on her hair. Her steady heartbeat filled his ears and, unlike most, this one didn't tempt him to anything more than to close his eyes and drift away. She was safe and sound and here with him and everything else was extraneous for the minute.

"Elena?" Stefan's voice resonated suddenly through the grave. "Are you in there?"

The guy really knew how to interrupt a moment.

Damon lifted his head regretfully to shout back a snide remark when Elena's finger covered his lips. She shook her head slightly and stood on tiptoe, whispering.

"Will you trust me?"

"Elena?" Stefan bellowed again, obviously standing right at the barrier.

Damon tried unsuccessfully to read her thoughts as she pinned him with her intent brown eyes.

"I will get you out," she mouthed, barely audible. "Don't answer, no matter what he says. Let me handle this, Damon, please. Will you. Trust me?"

Very slowly, he nodded, once again putting his trust in someone who had the power to take him down with his own ammunition.

She brushed her lips over his, so featherlight he wasn't even sure later on that it actually happened. Then she was gone and he was alone in a graveyard of bad memories.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So, it looks like I royally messed up the timeline for this story. I'm sorry for the mistakes in the last post, but I have a tendency to bog down in details so much that it overwhelms my muse and I wind up never getting to the actual story. I can't really fix it, so all I can say is this is now deviating completely from canon, so please don't look for exact adherence to the series. **

**Thanks so much to my beta and friend secretindulgence24. Her writing is my inspiration, her friendship is my mainstay during very long, sometimes challenging school weeks. If you haven't read the most recent chapter of her story **_**It Begins With Goodbye**_**, you are seriously missing out on the hottest Delena scene of all time-and that includes anything ever seen on a TV screen. **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Would that I did ... *sigh***

**Chapter 2**

"Hey."

Damon opened his eyes as Elena rounded the corner to the alcove that he'd been calling a bedroom ever since being inadvertently locked in the tomb last week. In the dim light of the camp lantern, he could make out the cobwebs in her hair and mud soaking the entire front of her sweatshirt and jeans. Even so, she was so beautiful it made his body ache.

"What happened to you?" he said by way of reply as he averted his eyes and stared back up at the ceiling.

"It's raining pretty hard," Elena explained, glancing dismissively at her wet clothing. "I slipped on the steps coming in and got banged up a little bit."

She took several steps closer to him and Damon caught the unevenness of her gait immediately. He sat up, frowning.

"How far'd you fall?" he asked, scanning her body all over again, this time with different intent.

"Couple feet." She shrugged, even while obviously favoring one ankle over the other. "No big deal."

"You lie like you cook: Badly," Damon retorted, getting to his feet and closing the small gap between them with two quick strides. Before she could protest, he was crouched in front of her, fingers wrapping deftly around her ankle to assess the damage.

She yelped and grabbed for his shoulder to steady herself as he prodded the swollen soft tissue. "Ouch!"

"That's what you get for defying Bambi's dire dictum," Damon muttered under his breath, even as he gentled his touch. "I'm assuming he still isn't happy with how hellbent you are on freeing me from his trap?"

Elena's silence was sufficient reply. Damon stifled a sigh and finished his examination. "Congratulations." He got to his feet, careful not to knock her off balance. "You've just won yourself several weeks on crutches, courtesy of your usual spectacularly bad judgment."

"It doesn't hurt that much," she protested.

"Neither does dying," Damon shot back, lifting a shoulder in disdain. "Doesn't make it any less of a royal pain."

He offered his arm as support again and waved at his sleeping bag. "Have a seat. You're not going anywhere until I hear the storm leave."

To his surprise, Elena didn't argue. Instead, she gave him an impish grin. "Would you consider a complimentary upgrade to your accommodations?"

Damon arched an eyebrow uncertainly. "What did you do, Elena ..."

Her smile got wider, its light filling her eyes until he felt like was standing in the sunlight instead of in a nearly pitch black tomb. "Am I allowed to move, Dr. Salvatore?"

Without waiting for his permission, she turned and hobbled back toward the entrance. He hurried after her, hovering over protectively to make sure she didn't stumble on any loose stones and worsen what was likely a hairline fracture. When they arrived at the tomb seal, Elena vanished through it momentarily, leaving Damon stranded behind Bonnie's spell.

"Elena?" he called after a few moments had elapsed full of strange scuffling noises. "Did you hear anything I said about bad judgment?" His concern grew as the scuffles turned into thumps and bumps, the sounds of what was obviously Elena wrestling a large object down the precarious steps. "Elena!" Damon yelled in consternation. "If you break the other ankle, I swear I'll find a way out of here and-"

"And what? Snap my neck for good measure?" Elena reappeared dragging an enormous suitcase. Panting with cold and exertion-the temperature out here was significantly cooler than within the thick-walled recesses of the catacomb-she put the full force of her slight weight behind the big case, propelling it past the boundary line to the point where Damon could reach it. He pulled the suitcase inside, then set aside his intense curiosity long enough to grab Elena as she stepped back inside the tomb.

"Damon!" she complained, as he swung her up into his chest. "I'm fine!"

"No argument from me on that point," he replied, carrying her back through the narrow, twisting walkways to his improvised bedroom. Letting her out of his arms as he settled her on the sleeping bag was either an exercise in serious self-restraint-he could've done anything he wanted to her at that moment and nobody could have stopped him-or an act of sheer stupidity-he could've done anything he wanted to her at that moment and nobody could have stopped him. The fact that he didn't actually do anything raised several red flags in Damon's mind about just how soft he'd gotten. He clenched his jaw and moved away. Elena immediately started to scramble up after him.

"Stay," Damon commanded, raising a finger in warning.

Elena gave him a mutinous look.

"_Stay_," he warned, backing toward the entrance. "I mean it, Elena. Being buried alive hasn't made me anymore saintly than I was previously. Not a good time to make me pissy."

"I get to open the suitcase, then."

"I don't know if I can wrestle that thing back here," Damon pointed out, mentally sizing up the suitcase.

"I open it or you'll have to sit on me."

He was trapped in a tomb. He hadn't showered in a week, the steady diet of frigid, rather than warmed blood, was doing serious damage to his palate, and he'd damn near kill-scratch that, he _would _kill-for a slug of any kind of booze, no matter how thirdrate. And yet, Damon couldn't help but grin at Elena's petulant expression. She had the market cornered on adorably whiny.

"Is there supposed to be a third option? Because both of those sound pretty good to me."

She threw her shoe across the room at him and he ducked, slipping from the chamber with a low laugh.

"Sit tight."

The suitcase proved as unwieldy as Damon had feared, but just because he wanted to watch Elena unwrap the surprise she was obviously so proud of, he fought the damn thing all the way through the maze.

The effort was totally worth it when he reappeared in the alcove covered in a thin layer of mortar from all the ceilings he'd scraped up against and Elena directed a high wattage smile at him. She damn near clapped as he shoved the beast right up to where she was sitting.

"Okay, Saint Nick," he drawled, propping himself up against the wall to supervise the unveiling. "Do your thing."

She grinned and scooted forward, poorly disguising a wince as she rearranged her legs so one was tucked underneath her and gingerly extended the other. He would let her have her fun for a few minutes before ordering her to elevate the injured ankle.

"First things first." Elena reached under her sweatshirt and Damon raised an eyebrow as she rummaged around in the region of her chest.

"Dear Santa, I was very good this year. Could you please have Elena Gilbert throw her bra at me? She doesn't like me rummaging through her lingerie and I would love a silky souvenir to play with. Sincerely, DJ Salvatore."

"DJ?" Elena asked interestedly, ignoring his mockery.

He shrugged, unwilling to offer too many details. "For a while when I was a kid, I didn't like my given name. Is this part of my present, by the way?" He watched her rummage around under her shirt interestedly. "Because if it is, you really know how to make a guy feel at home in a cold and clammy grave."

Elena rolled her eyes and her hands finally emerged from beneath her clothing clutching two blood bags which could only have been hidden in one place. "For your veins. I couldn't hook up a microwave down here, so this was the next best thing."

"I take it back, Santa baby." Damon's mouth watered in anticipation. "Your idea was _way _better."

He held out his hand for the gift, but Elena held it just out of reach.

"Don't tease the starving vampire," he warned, not entirely playfully.

Undeterred by his veiled threat, Elena patted the spot next to her. "Come sit with me,"

That wasn't exactly an onerous request, even if it was a surprising one. Damon complied, scooting onto the sleeping bag and leaning back against the stone wall with a forcibly casual air. To his relief, Elena handed over the bag with no further teasing. Damon ripped off the stopper and inhaled the contents, almost moaning as the warm liquid filled his mouth. Elena watched him with interest, seeming to take pleasure in his enjoyment.

"Body temperature's how you like it, right?" she asked with just a trace of endearing anxiety.

Damon polished off the second bag and licked his lips with relish before replying. "_Exactly_ how I like it, Lady G." His veins thrummed with renewed life that just couldn't be had from half-frozen platelets.

She smiled happily and turned toward the suitcase. "I like your nicknames."

The girl had no idea how close she was to being kissed senseless. Damon scrubbed a hand over his face to get his bearings and tried to sink back into big brother mode, rather than injured, abandoned big bad wolf.

"For your hair." Elena brandished a bottle of dry shampoo and a comb.

"Good call." Damon raked his fingers through the greasy, dusty mess on top of his head. His OCD cleanliness had taken a serious beating underground.

"For your brain." Elena extracted several thick novels, the short stack crowned by Damon's battered copy of Gone With the Wind. "Your favorite, I think?"

He smiled at her utter lack of subtlety when it came to being nosy. "It was at one point." He rifled through the books, pausing when he came to Stoker's Dracula and looking up at Elena quizzically.

She almost blushed. "I thought it could be ... funny. We could read parts out loud to each other. I mean, given everything I know about vampires now, the whole story is so farfetched ..."

"You never know," Damon mused. "One of my cape-clad ancestors could have prowled the beaches of Whitby searching for tasty virgin flesh." The thought of reading to her-a pastime he'd indulged in frequently as a young man courting-was incredibly attractive. He was conjuring up a fantasy of her leaning in close, her head tucked into his neck, her breath feathering over his skin as he read, when Elena ruined the daydream by poking him in the ribs.

"It was a joke. Why aren't you laughing?"

He did laugh at the next selection, the sound filling the room around them with happy resonance. "Seriously?"

This time Elena did blush, burying her face in her hands and apparently regretting her choice of literature. "Another joke," she insisted when Damon tugged on a strand of her hair until she looked up at him through the spaces between her fingers.

"By all means then. Allow me to read a passage so we can laugh about it." He flipped randomly to a page. _ "Oh, fuck the paperwork," he growls. He lunges at me, pushing me against the wall of the elevator."_

"Don't!" Elena begged, collapsing onto her side on top of the sleeping bag and pressing her face into the thick fabric.

_"Before I know it, he's got both of my hands in one of his in a vice-like grip above my head, and he's pinning me to the wall using his hips."_

She squealed into the sleeping bag, rolling around as though she was in physical pain.

"It's a joke, Elena," Damon teased, bringing his hand down and pinning her to the fabric so she'd quit squirming. "Why aren't you laughing? _Holy shit. His other hand grabs my ponytail and yanks down, bringing my face up and, and his lips are on mine-"_

"Stop!" she gasped, her face crimson as she peeked up at him.

"Something you keep on your nightstand for a little light reading?" Damon inquired, grinning broadly. This was turning out to be a lot more fun than he could possibly have anticipated.

"Don't you want to see what else is in the suitcase?"

"Obviously." He waggled his eyebrows. "Maybe we can open it in the Red Room, Miss Steele?"

Elena swatted his shoulder ineffectually, her face still a pretty shade of pink.

A question loomed in his mind and he asked it without thinking because that's what Damon generally did. His personal filter was 99% ineffective.

"Elena."

She looked over at him from the suitcase that she was yet again trawling through. "Yes?"

"Why?" Damon nodded at the now empty bags of blood, the shampoo, the books. "We haven't been like this for-"

"I know." She cut him off with surprising alacrity. "Not since Stefan disappeared and we had ... that summer."

_That summer._ A paltry way to describe the happiest months of Damon's long life before the world imploded all over again.

"Did you think I'd forgotten?" Elena asked quietly, head tilting to the side.

Damon shrugged defensively even though he was the one who'd brought up the sensitive subject. "Can you blame me?" All those nights cooking dinner together, the miles they'd run competing to see who would win when Damon didn't use vampire speed, the hours of teasing banter and drinking games-for all purposes, she seemed to have deleted them from her memory the minute Stefan walked back in dripping blood from his fangs.

Surprisingly, she shook her head. "No. I didn't forget, Damon. I just ... I couldn't remember those moments when I was trying to talk Stefan down off the cliff. I was so happy while he was suffering ... it felt disloyal."

He nodded wearily, wishing he'd kept his big mouth shut for a change. "I get it."

She placed her hand on his knee and he was hard-pressed not to recoil from the intimacy. "No. You don't." Elena shook the hair out of her face and looked up at him intently. "I messed up, Damon. While trying to be loyal to my schizophrenic boyfriend, I wound up betraying the person who stood shoulder to shoulder with me throughout the entire fight. I'm sorry."

"So ... that's what this is?" he asked uncertainly after a long awkward silence between them. "Some kind of belated apology?"

"This?" Elena looked backed at the suitcase and laughed suddenly, the mood immediately lifting. "No. This is Christmas, 24 hours early." She extracted a green elf hat from her treasure trove and perched it on her head.

Damon chuckled. "Sorry, Benny." He snagged the hat and perched it instead on his own head.  
You need a license to wear an outfit that sexy. Mrs. Clause has serious jealousy issues."

Smirking, Elena returned to her seemingly endless supply of goodies.

"Veins, hair, brain," she muttered under her breath, "Veins, hair, brains ... body!" Triumphantly, she waved around an industrial sized box of wet wipes.

Damon whistled approvingly. Not exactly a hot shower, but he was in no position to be picky.

"And when you're done cleaning up ..." Elena shoved a plastic wrapped package into his lap.

It took Damon a second to unravel the bundled up mess to reveal-

"Clean clothes!" He let out a whoop of delight as he untangled shoes-the reason for the bag, so they wouldn't get the rest of the clothes dirty-socks, his leather jacket, fresh jeans and an only slightly crumpled John Varvatos shirt. "_Yes!"_ Further scrutiny revealed clean boxers at the bottom of the bag, clearly taken from his bedroom drawer. "Ooooh, Santa." He waved them in the air, reveling in Elena's renewed blush. "Looks like your elf filched her own silky souvenir."

"Shut up," she muttered good naturedly. "Go get cleaned up while I unveil the final masterpiece."

"You could call me stripping off these-" Damon wrinkled his nose as he plucked at his filthy clothing, "an unveiling ..."

She snorted. "Not even. Go! And let me know before you come back so I can make sure everything's ready."

"You don't know what you're missing ..." Cutting the banter short, Damon gathered up his supplies and made his way a few walls down to another alcove.

Whistling, he peeled off his shirt, dusted his hair with the dry shampoo to let it start absorbing all the grease, and set to work scrubbing away at his arms, abs and chest. Ten wipes later, he decided he'd degrimed his upper body as much as was possible. Before tackling his lower extremities, he aggressively brushed the powder out of his hair and was more or less satisfied with the results. Everything below the waist took considerably longer, given that he had to contort himself into positions that usually only necessitated a spray of water to reach.

"How's it coming?" Elena called after a while, her voice muffled

"Off," Damon replied, hopping on one leg to keep his freshly scrubbed left foot clean before he could safely encase it in a new sock and shoe. "Dirt." Hop. "Is coming off." Hop hop. "Returning to." Hop-stagger slightly to the left-"its regularly scheduled graaaaaaave-whoa!" Catching himself just before he landed in the dirt and completely undid all his efforts, Damon jammed his fingers into a crack in the wall and succeeded in staying upright.

"Everything okay?"

"Ohhhhh yeah," he drawled happily. "Next time Stefan decides to bury me in an unmarked grave, remind me to contact you telepathically." He pulled the fresh shirt over his head and sighed with pleasure at the feel of all that clean fabric on his similarly clean skin. "You could go into business catering for the needs of the unjustly interred undead."

"If you're about done in there, I'm just about ready with things on my end."

"Things?" Damon echoed curiously. "How much more space was left in that suitcase, Mary Poppins?"

"Enough. Are you coming?"

He slipped into his old leather jacket and shrugged his shoulders until it settled over his lean frame like a second skin. "On my way."

The narrow passageways somehow seemed less claustrophobic with clean clothes on. Damon moved slowly, trying not to brush up against any walls. For as long as he could, he wanted to keep the tomb from reinvading his senses. Rounding the corner, he spotted the low-lying light of the lantern. Somehow, it seemed brighter all of a sudden.

"Did you also bring batteries along with all the-_oh_." Damon stumbled to a halt just inside the room. His eyebrows went up, his lips parted, but no other sound emerged as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

**Next chapter: Delena action in a big way ...**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Chapter is rated M.**

**Thank you so much to those of you who took the time to review Ch. 2. Your feedback means so much to me.**

**And thank you to my brilliant beta, secretindulgence 24, who has managed to drag my muse out of hibernation with her patient, skillful encouragement. If you haven't read her story **_**It Starts With Goodbye**_**, go read it already! =)**

Chapter 3

In the space of 30 minutes, his grim little bedroom had been turned into Home for the Holidays. In place of his sleeping bag, an air mattress had been inflated and draped with a cheerful combination of green sheets and garish red bedspread. A stuffed reindeer perched on an overstuffed pillow, surveying the room with its fixed, beady eyes. A carpet of scattered pine needles brightened up the concrete floor and freshened the stale grave air that had all but seeped into Damon's skin by this point. A small plastic Christmas tree added to the improvised festivity, perched in the corner and adorned with a few popcorn strings and a silver star. Battery-operated Christmas lights blinked sequentially, strung haphazardly along the walls wherever there was a place for the strand to catch,. Their cheerful multicolored glow led Damon's astonished gaze toward the ceiling where silver tinsel streamers caught the light and gleamed.

"For your heart."

Elena's soft voice dragged Damon out of his reverie. He turned on his heel and discovered her standing just behind him transformed as completely as the grave. The muddy jeans and sweatshirt had vanished, replaced by a scoop-necked, off-the-shoulder crimson dress with black lace trim and a matching wrap.

Her hair was swept up in a loose chignon, exposing the graceful line of her neck. Gold dust glistened on her collarbone, highlighting the small, sexy divots. In a graveyard created specifically for demons, she looked angelic.

"Do you like it?" she asked hopefully, holding out a long-stemmed glass that was a twin to one in her left hand.

He stared at her for a long moment, searching for the right way to say _thank you_ without violating the boundaries she'd imposed between them.

"I like it too much," he finally said quietly. "This ..." He waved a hand around them. "It's uh ..." he cleared his throat and looked away, "probably the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."

Before she could say anything-before she could step into his line of vision and shake him so that once again he couldn't coherently speak, Damon went on. "I don't know how to reactto it, Elena."

Without looking, he knew she had the usual baffled frown she got whenever he did something that pushed her beyond her comfort limits.

"Thank you always works for me."

"Yeah ..." He turned back toward her, unable to muster up the strength to play the same old tired game again. Sweeping his gaze across her with slow deliberateness, Damon shook his head. "You don't want me to thank you. Trust me."

She let out a frustrated huff. "Why not?"

Damon sighed at her deliberate, defensive naïveté.

"Because you won't be_ hearing_ the words, Elena." Reaching out, he took both glasses from her and set them on the floor a safe distance away. Retaining his grip on her hand, he laced their hands together, folding his long fingers around hers all the while watching the slowly dawning expression on her face. He nodded grimly, using their interlaced digits to draw her close to him, to wear he could look down into her face and murmur, "If I say thank you," he trailed his thumb along her jawline, gazing into her eyes, "you'll be tasting the words as they slip from my lips" he touched his mouth, then pressed two fingers to her soft lips, "onto yours."

They were _right there_ and she hadn't pulled back yet. All he had to do was lower his head a fraction of an inch ...

When she spoke, so close, her own words drifted over his lips. "Damon ..."

"Don't." The word was a lone plea for her to take it easy on his heart for a change.

She pressed their entwined hands to her chest. "I'm not saying no."

He didn't dare read into that. Hope had been brutally slaughtered between them one too many times. "But ..."

Elena lowered her head and clasped their hands with her free hand, idly tracing Damon's knuckles with apparently no notion of what the light touch was doing to him. Finally, she raised her gaze to his again, her brown eyes glinting in the soft Christmas light. "I'm saying ... not yet."

Damon let out a disbelieving half-breath and Elena smiled slightly.

"This thing between us ... Damon ... I can't deny its existence."

"Two years says otherwise," he blurted unintentionally. After the words were out, he couldn't bring himself to apologize, even though it hurt to see he wince.

"Ouch." Elena sucked in a breath, then exhaled heavily. "I deserved that. Okay."

Finally, she pulled away, leaving Damon stranded alone in the middle of the Christmas finery while she paced, her injured ankle dragging slightly beside its mate.

"Stefan and me ... from the looks of everything, we're at a dead end that I can't seem to find a way to get by." She toyed with a low-hanging strand of tinsel. "I want to try, but he keeps putting roadblocks in the way, and I'm tired." Elena glanced over at him, sadness and frustration replacing her previously expression. "Sometimes ... a girl just wants something easy. Why can't anything _ever _be easy?"

"Elena." He laughed dryly at what she seemed to be implying. "If that's the yardstick with which you're measuring Salvatore soulmate possibility... when I said I was easy, I definitely didn't mean that way."

"But with you it's more honest," she retorted, a trace of anger now lacing her speech. "Unless you're plotting world domination by unleashing a tombful of vampire zombies ... you don't keep secrets from me." She picked up the stuffed animal and glared at it dangerously.

Trying to lighten the black mood that he himself had created, Damon warned, "Back away from the reindeer slowly."

It didn't work.

Tossing the toy aside, Elena sank down onto the air mattress and clutched the pillow to her chest. "You treat me like a doll you have to protect from choosing, but then you also hold my feet to the fire and force me to make tough decisions. You're harder and simultaneously ... easier."

"Oh, well, now you're just making me sound slutty." Strolling over to her casually, he sat down beside her, feeling the air pockets in the mattress shift.

She butted her head into his shoulder miserably. "Damon."

"Elena."

"I don't know what to do," she whispered. "No matter what, somebody winds up being hurt."

He fought the urge to put an arm around her. At the moment that just seemed like a brotherly thing and he was suddenly desperate to emphasize the fact that he was so _don_e with being the vampire version of Jeremy. Instead, he nudged her chin up and gave her the full measure of his gaze, hiding nothing. He let her see it all-the love, the hurt, the despair at always being overlooked, and he knew that she saw when she tried to pull back from the intensity. He held her shoulder lightly, refusing to back down this time.

"Just tell me what you want. I'll give you anything, Elena, even if it means leaving so you can start over with Stefan-"

"Don't leave!" The exclamation was sharp and unexpected. Elena got to her feet and looked down at him, her eyes suddenly glistening. "Damon ... I need you."

"You need _me_ or you need my help?" he asked bluntly, hating the tears he'd caused, but equally determined to see this through to the finish. When he finally emerged from this damn tomb, it was going to be with a fresh perspective.

"You promised you would never leave me again."

"Dammit, Elena." He got to his feet too, anger rising at the accusation on her face. "Don't dodge the question! I can't do this back and forth anymore, no matter what I promised. You have to tell me where I-where _we-_stand. Do. You. Need me?" he repeated, emphasizing each word with an acid punctuation mark. "Or is it just my unique set of skills that makes me worth keeping around? Tell me, Elena. Is my ability to kick ass the only reason you're playing graveyard Saint Nick, instead of being with your friends on Christmas Eve?"

"I'm down here because I want to be!" Elena snapped back, suddenly animated. "Damon, you're my friend. I promised I wouldn't leave you and _I_ actually keep my promises. With Jeremy in Colorado, there's nowhere else I'd rather be this evening. Do you _wan_t me to leave?"

"What I want to do is kiss you," he retorted bluntly, going for broke now that they were having this conversation. "Like I did in the motel before I realized you were using me as a guinea pig for your feelings. I want to _kiss_ you, Elena, until you stop fighting every small advance we make and stop questioning everything. I want your skin to ignite, your breath to stall in your chest, your heart to stop beating and still nothing will stop us kissing until you become a direct extension of my body."

She looked him directly in the eye. "Then kiss me."

They stared at each other in astonishment, words hovering between them fragile as spun glass. Before they could fall to the floor and shatter this dream, Damon pulled her hard against him. Elena's hands framed his face as his created a cage around her narrow waist ensuring that she could not escape. His lips parted to take an overwhelmed breath and she took advantage, slanting her mouth over his so that instead of inhaling air it was Elena he breathed in. Her bottom lip slid in between his and he drew it lightly between his teeth, grazing the sensitive flesh and reveling in her immediate intake of breath.

Damon slid one hand up to her jaw, cupping it between his thumb and forefinger to better angle it, but she was the one who deepened the kiss, bypassing the barely parted seam of their lips with her tongue. His groan was lost in translation, swallowed by her slow, sweet tease along his sensitive teeth. In retaliation he pulled away to kiss the slope of her neck. Starting just underneath her jaw, he worked his way down the slender column of her throat pressing open-mouthed kisses, teeth grazing the tender skin.

"Mmmm ..."

Elena's breathless moan was more arousing than anything in the vampire's long memory except for maybe her accelerated heartbeat. He lingered at the carotid because it was such a sexy little spot and because hearing the rush of her blood was like taking a direct hit of something off the street. Drug-like, the sound bypassed the blood-brain barrier and spilled over his synapses, setting off a chain reaction down his spine. As if she sensed this, Elena's fingers tracked their way down his back and dug in, anchoring herself to him.

He worked his way back up to her mouth, pausing to kiss each flushed cheek and fluttering eyelid, his hunger growing with every whisper of Elena's need.

She pushed against him, her uninjured leg twining around his, rocking her hips into his. Belatedly remembering her hurt ankle, Damon slid a powerful arm beneath her backside and scooped her up. Automatically her legs wrapped around his waist, the dress sliding up so that the thin satin of her panties settled flush against the seam of his jeans, the intimacy triggering a moan from Elena and a feral growl from Damon.

_"Elena."_

He slammed them back into the tomb wall, her thighs coming to rest firmly on his left forearm while his right dragged the neckline of her dress down until her arms were partially pinned by the elastic. Goosebumps covered her skin from the chill of the tomb, a sign of cold that Damon sought quickly to eradicate with the warmth of his tongue.

Elena's hands pushed in between them seeking the waistline of his jeans so she could free his shirt. Her fingertips were far from nimble, bordering on desperate as they pushed and pulled at the fabric futilely until Damon, busy tasting every inch of her shoulders, chuckled.

Dropping a hard kiss on her flushed, full lips, he helped her out by undoing the buckle of his belt, his fingers tangling with hers momentarily as she shoved the waistband back and slid her palms onto the flat abdominal slope beneath.

"Gahf ..." he gasped incoherently, her soft, warm hands against his cold hard skin unexpectedly firing his nerves like a dynamite chain reaction.

It was her turn to laugh, stealing multiple kisses as she moved up his chest with deliberate slow intention.

"_Lena _..." Damon groaned as she smoothed her palms across his pectorals. When she raked her nails teasingly across his nipples, he lost the plot completely and forgot all about his intentions to save her pretty dress. One quick yank and it shredded, sliding down her skin like silk to puddle somewhere at their feet, where it was immediately trampled.

Boosting Elena higher on his forearm so that her demi-cup bra was easier to reach, Damon locked eyes with her and dragged the full width of his hand down the valley of her breasts, all the way down to the juncture of her legs. Her eyes widened as he slid his hand beneath the elastic waistband of her panties, while simultaneously using his teeth to drag aside the black lace fabric of her bra aside until the peak of her left nipple was exposed, immediately pebbling in the cool air.

She called his name halfway deliriously as he teased her with fingers and tongue, above and below, until his own body was screaming with the need to feel her skin to skin. Unwilling to ruin his brand new shirt, Damon managed to somehow keep kissing Elena while undoing buttons, shrugging the garment off and tossing it onto what he hoped was the mattress. In response she reached back and undid her bra, leaving nothing between their upper bodies.

For one long moment, they both stopped, staring at each other, an emotional layer between them falling by the wayside at the same time their clothes did.

When they kissed again, it was initially with soft wonder, then with savage intent, teeth colliding, pinpoints of blood appearing on Elena's lips when Damon's fangs grazed them. He licked the drops away, sucking gently at the tiny wounds he'd created. She didn't seem to mind, raining hard, hungry kisses of her own all across his torso, her shallow half-breaths filling the small chamber and matching his own erratic breathing. They sparred, jockeying for position-his mouth hungry on her small, full breasts, hers attempting to explore his chest in similar fashion, unafraid to use her human teeth to get her way.

When she nipped him particularly hard at one point, Damon's head jerked up from the breast it had been lavishing attention upon and glared daggers at the woman he loved. The laughter in her eyes filled him until it overflowed, spilling over as pure, primal passion.

His own eyes narrowed in warning, his voice somewhere between a growl and a snarl. "I could _eat_ you."

Her response was classic Elena-surprising, needy, demanding, even while it offered her up as a willing sacrifice to another's whims.

Lips swollen from their kisses, she leaned in and placed her mouth next to his ear. "Please."

The husky note of need snapped Damon's last measure of self-control. Staggering backwards, he somehow managed to get them to the bed even as Elena did her level best to distract him with suddenly soft, sweet kisses raining down all along his shoulders and biceps.

When he felt the mattress at the back of his knees, he groaned with relief and let them fall backwards, careful to brace Elena's body with his. The mattress wasn't nearly firm enough for his liking, but it was sturdy enough for her to climb on top of him, her knees framing his thighs.

Lifting his hips, he helped her divest him of his jeans so they were more evenly matched in terms of attire. Elena wasted no time in retaliating for Damon's earlier teasing, her every touch having an incendiary effect, until he was afraid that for the first time in centuries he might actually lose control too quickly.

Taking control of the situation, he caught her by the waist and dragged her up until her chest was at mouth-level for him. Encompassing her backside with both palms to keep her from escaping, he suckled and nipped each breast in turn, Elena's cries and wriggling raising the temperature in the room until they were both sweating, a thin sheen coating their bodies and lubricating the slow side of skin against slick skin.

The hotter their bodies got, the slower Damon went, easing them into a sultry, dark dance with each slow swipe of his tongue and tender caress of his hands. Elena's breathing became a sob as he showed her physically what he'd spent years trying to tell her verbally.

Gentling her frantic movements, Damon smoothed her damp hair back from her face, fingers lingering at the curve of her cheek.

"It feels like I've loved you forever," he said quietly, needing her to know even if it was hopelessly, dangerously revealing. He traced the line from her ear to her chin and back again, then took her face in his hands and kissed her very softly, his own emotions heightened to the point of breaking. "Even before Katherine, somehow ... Elena. You were the woman in my dreams."

Elena's wide brown eyes were soft with emotion. "It feels like I'm just waking up after years of being asleep."

Damon grinned slowly as he turned their bodies so she lay beneath him. He helped her remove the remaining scraps of clothing between them and allowed her to guide him to her, his lips hovering over hers as he slid inside.

"Rise and shine."

Moving in an automatically natural, passionate rhythm, they woke each other from the respective nightmares of their past lives. The edge came closer and closer, the one they walked every single day, but this time they didn't skirt it. Bodies and hearts intertwined, Damon and Elena stepped off the cliff together and tumbled headlong into whatever lay beyond the clouds of their dreams.

**Next chapter: The morning after ...**


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